South Asia Archives - Page 54 of 94 - Investigative Journalism Reportika

China uses carrots and sticks to boost Uyghur-Han intermarriage-report

Editor2 years ago07 mins

China mixes financial, education and career incentives with coercive measures such as threats to families under state policies to promote intermarriage between majority Han Chinese and ethnic minority Uyghurs in the restive Xinjiang region, a new report by a Uyghur rights group has found. The Uyghur Human Rights Project analyzed Chinese state media, policy documents, government sanctioned marriage testimonials, as well as accounts from women in the Uyghur diaspora, that government incentivizes and coercion to boost interethnic marriages has increased since 2014. “The Chinese Party-State is actively involved in carrying out a campaign of forcefully assimilating Uyghurs into Han Chinese society by means of mixed marriages,” said the report. The findings on forced marriage by Washington, DC-based NGO come as Western governments and the United Nations have recognized that Chinese policies in Xinjiang amount to or may amount to genocide or crimes against humanity. Forced labor, incarceration camps and other aspects of China’s rule in Xinjiang have drawn sanctions from Britain, Canada, the European Union and the United States. The study, “Forced Marriage of Uyghur Women: State Policies for Interethnic Marriage in East Turkistan,” draws on state media propaganda films, state-approved online accounts of interethnic marriages and weddings, state-approved personal online testimonials from individuals in interethnic marriages, as well as government statements and policy directives. “The Party-State has actively encouraged and incentivized ‘interethnic’ Uyghur-Han intermarriage since at least May 2014,” the Uyghur Human Rights Project says in the report, released on Nov. 16. Interethnic marriage policies gained momentum after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a “new era” at the Xinjiang Work Forum in 2014, touting a policy of strengthening interethnic “contact, exchange, and mingling,” the report said. “Uyghur-Han intermarriage has been increasing over the past several years since the Chinese state has been actively promoting intermarriage,” said Nuzigum Setiwaldi a co-author of the report. “The Chinese government always talks about how interethnic marriages promote ‘ethnic unity’ and ‘social stability,’ but these actually are euphemisms for assimilation,” she told RFA Uyghur. “The Chinese government is incentivizing and promoting intermarriage as a way to assimilate Uyghurs into Han society and culture. Carrots include cash payments, help with housing, medical care, government jobs, and tuition waivers. When it comes to sticks, “young Uyghur women and/or their parents face an ever-present threat of punishment if the women decline to marry a Han ‘suitor,’” the report said, citing experiences of Uyghur women now living in exile. “Videos and testimonies have also raised concerns that Uyghur women are being pressured and forced into marrying Han men,” said Setiwaldi. The report cites an informal marriage guide for male Han party officials published in 2019, titled “How to Win the Heart of a Uyghur Girl.” Han men who want to marry Uyghur women are told that the woman they love “must love the Motherland, love the Party, and she must have unrivaled passion for socialist Xinjiang,” it said. Commenting on the report, scholar Adrian Zenz said the Chinese Communist Party’s “policy of incentivizing Han and coercing Uyghurs into interethnic marriages is part of a strategy of breaking down and dismantling Uyghur culture.” Zenz, a senior fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C., was the first outside expert to document the network of mass internment camp for Uyghurs launched in Xinjiang in 2017 and he has analyzed China’s Uyghur population policies. The intermarriage strategy serves the goal of “optimizing the ethnic population structure, breaking the ‘dominance’ of concentrated Uyghur populations in southern Xinjiang as part of a slowly unfolding genocidal policy,” he told RFA. “It’s important that people pay attention to the different forms of human rights abuses that are taking place in the Uyghur region, particularly those that are underreported, like forced marriages,” said Setiwaldi. “People can raise awareness and push their governments to hold the Chinese government accountable.” China had no immediate comment on the report. Last month, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement dismissed U.S. efforts to debate the U.N. report, saying, “the human rights of people of all ethnic backgrounds in Xinjiang are protected like never before” and “the ultimate motive of the U.S. and some other Western countries behind their Xinjiang narrative is to contain China.” Written by Paul Eckert for RFA.

North Korean censors destroy more than half of soldiers’ Mother’s Day letters

Editor2 years ago05 mins

North Korea’s military ordered soldiers to write letters to their mothers ahead of the country’s Mother’s Day, which was on Wednesday, but military censors destroyed more than half of them for ideological reasons, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. To make matters worse, the censors even used the contents of some letters to identify and punish problematic soldiers, sources said. “The letters from soldiers of each unit … are opened before they arrive at the regimental postal office, and the ones that contain complaints about the difficulties of military service are sorted out and destroyed,” a source from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The number of mothers who aren’t receiving letters is likely in the hundreds of thousands. Every able-bodied North Korean must serve in the military. Until recently, male soldiers spent 10 years in the service, but since 2020, men serve eight years and women five as part of a fighting force estimated by the CIA World Factbook to be 1.15 million strong. From the letters sorted out, the censors made a list of soldiers with “weak ideological wills” – in other words, those who complained about hunger or fatigue, the source said. Those soldiers will be sent to ideological training. Letters written by a unit of soldiers guarding the border with China in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong had to pass through two rounds of censors, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The letters were first opened and censored by the company security officers, then they were all collected at the regiment and the military’s security authorities inspected them again,” the second source said. Some of the soldiers on the weak ideology list did not even complain. Instead they made the mistake of asking about their mothers’ wellbeing, the second source said. “A soldier sent his regards to his mother and asked her if the house had not collapsed in a recent flood and if the farming was going well,” the second source said. “However, the military security department pointed out that this shows that the soldier … does not trust the Party and speaks weakly instead of trusting that the Party takes care of the lives of all citizens.” Because so many soldiers are now going to be sent to ideological reeducation, they are griping about the authorities’ duplicitous behavior, because they are the ones that ordered them to write the letters in the first place, the second source said. Though Mother’s Day is most commonly celebrated around the world on the second Sunday in May, it falls on other dates in many countries. It is a relatively new holiday in North Korea, introduced in 2012 during the first year of Kim Jong Un’s reign, and became a public holiday in 2015. Authorities chose Nov. 16 in remembrance of an iconic speech about mothers delivered on that day in 1961 by Kim’s grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Nearly 1.7 million new refugees of conflict in Myanmar since coup

Editor2 years ago010 mins

Nearly 1.7 million people have been displaced by conflict in Myanmar since last year’s military coup, bringing the total number of refugees who have fled fighting in the country to more than 3 million and putting a heavy strain on aid resources in the Southeast Asian nation. The Institute for Strategy and Policy, an independent research group, said in a report earlier this month that as of Nov. 2, at least 1,650,661 people had been forced to escape conflict in regions that include Sagaing, Magway, Bago, Chin and Kayah in the more than 21 months since the military took power in Myanmar. The new refugees join an estimated 497,200 internally displaced persons who fled conflict before the Feb. 21, 2021 coup and at least 1,019,190 who have crossed Myanmar’s borders into the neighboring countries of Thailand, India and Bangladesh due to fighting both prior to and after the putsch, the group said. The new total of 3,167,051 represents roughly six percent of the country’s population of 54.4 million. As the number of refugees continues to swell, amidst a protracted conflict in Myanmar’s remote border regions between the military and anti-coup paramilitary groups and ethnic armies, local and international aid groups say the junta has barred them from accessing those in need or hampered efforts to deliver crucial supplies to camps for the displaced. Speaking to RFA Burmese on Wednesday, a refugee in Chin state’s war-torn Kanpetlet township said medicine and food resources at their camp have nearly dried up, putting an already vulnerable population at greater risk. “We are in a very difficult situation,” said the refugee, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal by the military. “We are in desperate need of medicine for the elderly, pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers, and children under the age of five.” According to ethnic Chin human rights groups, conflict since the military coup has created more than 110,000 new refugees in Chin state, more than 60,000 of whom fled to other regions of Myanmar and more than 50,000 of whom crossed into India’s Mizoram state to escape the fighting. In Kayin state, the ethnic Karen National Union said that daily battles between the military and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army, had caused at least 186,471 people to flee their homes in the Karen-controlled townships of Hpapun, Kawkareik, Kyainseikgyi, and Myawaddy as of Aug. 16. Meanwhile, more than 130,000 ethnic Rohingya refugees who fled violence in Rakhine state in 2012 and 2017 remain in more than 10 camps for the displaced in Sittwe township, aid workers say. Aid undelivered The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar prompted an agreement between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the junta to facilitate the immediate distribution of aid to refugees in the country through the military regime’s Ministry of International Cooperation at a May 6 meeting in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. Nonetheless, aid groups – including U.N. agencies and NGOs – say they have been blocked from doing so or that the supplies they have handed over to the junta remain undelivered under the pretense of security risks. Attempts by RFA to contact the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management via email for comment on why aid has largely been withheld from Myanmar’s refugees went unanswered Wednesday, as did requests for comment to Ko Ko Hlaing, the junta’s Union Minister for International Cooperation. Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, said that junta restrictions have made the distribution of relief impossible in the country, and advised that aid groups “leave Myanmar officially.” “Providing humanitarian aid through the countries bordering Myanmar will be more effective,” he told RFA. Other groups have suggested that ASEAN’s relief agency had overestimated its ability to deliver. In a statement on Nov. 1, the Thailand-based Border Consortium, which has assisted refugees along the Thai-Myanmar border since 1984, said the agency “lacks experience” in responding to emergency situations and claimed that efforts to distribute aid to rural Myanmar would remain fruitless without the military’s blessing. Rohingya migrants are escorted after their boat carrying 119 people landed on the coast of Bluka Teubai, North Aceh, Indonesia, on November 16, 2022, after surviving a five week journey at sea. Credit: AFP Rohingya refugee arrests The new figures for refugees of conflict in Myanmar came as reporting by RFA found that authorities had arrested at least 388 Rohingyas who tried to flee refugee camps in Rakhine state and neighboring Bangladesh for Malaysia between Oct. 17 and Nov. 11. Authorities in Myanmar do not recognize Rohingyas as citizens of the country, despite members of their ethnic group having a long history in Rakhine state, and subject them to discrimination and movement restrictions. Among those arrested in the three weeks ending Nov. 11 were 60 members of a group of 80 Rohingyas, including 45 children, whose boat sank near Ayeyarwaddy region’s Bogale township as it made its way to the Andaman Sea on Oct. 30, leaving 20 people missing. A Bogale resident who is helping the detained Rohingyas told RFA that the 60 Rohingya are being detained at the township’s police station on immigration charges. On Oct. 20, authorities arrested 117 Rohingyas who they said were trying to leave Myanmar for Malaysia at a house in Yangon region, and 54 Rohingyas – including a pregnant woman – who planned to the same destination near Ayeyarwady region’s Maubin township two days later. On Nov. 2, authorities in Kayin state’s Kawkareik township arrested 101 Rohingyas attempting to flee to Thailand from Rakhine state’s Buthidaung township, sources said. According to data collected by RFA, authorities in Myanmar have arrested at least 992 Rohingyas who tried to flee their homes between December 2021 and mid-October 2022. Among them, 223 have been sentenced to between two and five years in prison under Myanmar’s immigration laws. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Analysis: Biden-Xi summit delivers calmer tone, reminders of US-China fault lines

Editor2 years ago011 mins

Highly anticipated yet viewed with low expectations, the summit Monday between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping improved the tone in bilateral contacts after years of tensions while underscoring how Taiwan looms over efforts to keep a strategic rivalry from spiraling into conflict. After three hours of talks at a resort hotel on the Indonesian island of Bali on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, Biden said he and Xi were “very blunt with one another,” while a Xi spokesperson described the meeting as “in-depth, candid and constructive.” Those phrases–diplomatic speak for airing sharp differences—came after both leaders, in their first face-to-face meeting since Biden took office nearly two years ago, acknowledged global expectations that the superpowers keep the numerous U.S.-China disputes from deteriorating into conflict. “The Biden-Xi meeting exceeded low expectations, with both leaders clearly expressing a desire to manage differences and work together on urgent global issues,” said Patricia Kim of the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. The White House said Beijing and Washington also “agreed to empower key senior officials to maintain communication and deepen constructive efforts” in areas like climate talks and other global issues, including resuming long-frozen discussions by joint working groups. “The fact that the two sides agreed to reinitiate working level discussions in transnational challenges including climate change, public health and food security is quite promising,” Kim told Radio Free Asia, adding that much hard work remained. Although Biden and Xi go back more than a decade to when they were both vice-presidents, they have spoken only by phone since Biden took office. Face-to-face talks between the leaders of the two powers have value in themselves. “This was the first face-to-face meeting between President Biden and President Xi in about five years, and it occurred at a tense time in the US-China relationship,” said Sheena Chestnut Greitens, the Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “In my view, the buildup in Chinese military and nuclear capabilities, combined with a relative lack of dialogue to understand China’s intentions and lack of robust crisis management mechanisms, pose significant risks to stability in the U.S.-China relationship,” she told RFA. President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2022. Credit: Reuters Neither ‘more confrontational (nor) more conciliatory’ Among other useful opportunities, Biden was able to size up Xi just weeks after he was reappointed for a norm-busting third term as leader at Chinese Communist Party. “I didn’t find him more confrontational or more conciliatory,” Biden told reporters after their summit. “I found him the way he’s always been, direct and straightforward.” The U.S. president added: “I am convinced that he understood exactly what I was saying and I understood what he was saying.” Among contentious issues Biden raised with Xi were concerns over China’s crackdown since 2019 in Hong Kong, harsh policies against minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet, trade and Russia invasion of Ukraine, the White House said. Although there were no expectations of big policy breakthroughs and there was no joint statement, Biden appeared to make headway in winning oblique Chinese criticism of Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats against Ukraine. Xi is an ally of Putin in a relationship that undercuts China’s claim to be neutral in the Ukraine war. “President Biden and President Xi reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought and can never be won and underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” the White House said. Chinese statements excluded mention of this. “While this particular line did not appear on the official Chinese readout, the fact that the White House readout clearly noted that both leaders affirmed this statement was significant and a critical communication of redlines to Putin,” said Kim of Brookings. Looming largest was Taiwan, the self-ruling island democracy that Beijing views as an inalienable part of China and a domestic affair that no other country has the right to interfere in. Washington has longstanding security ties with Taipei, even as it officially recognizes only the government in Beijing under a one China policy. At their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, Nov. 14, 2022, President Joe Biden told China’s President Xi Jinping that the U.S. had not changed its one China policy, the White House said. Credit: AFP ‘The core of China’s core interests’ On Taiwan, Biden told Xi that the U.S. had not changed its one China policy, and “opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side,” the White House said. Biden “raised U.S. objections to (China’s) coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan, which undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region, and jeopardize global prosperity,” it said. Xi described Taiwan as “the core of China’s core interests,” and “the first insurmountable red line in U.S.-China relations,” and called for the U.S. leader to stick to his commitment in not supporting Taiwanese independence. Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of giving support to “separatist forces in Taiwan” and retaliated by freezing climate talks and sharply increasing military activities around the island after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited in August. Biden’s denial that there has been any change in U.S. policy follows his statements that Washington would help Taiwan defend itself and comes amid moves by American lawmakers to increase military assistance to Taiwan and expedite current arms contracts. To Beijing, such U.S. actions raise doubts about Washington’s commitment to the status quo, said Chang Teng-chi, head of political science at National Taiwan University in Taipei. “Ultimately … there is no trust between the two sides, so all they can hope to do is dynamic crisis management,” he told RFA. Monday’s meeting in Bali nonetheless left the U.S. “in a better position now than we were before,” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, Center fellow…

Biden gets political boost on eve of key meeting with Xi

Editor2 years ago08 mins

Leaders of half the world’s population gathered in Phnom Penh on Sunday but for the traveling White House press corps the big news was breaking half a world away as President Joe Biden’s Democrat Party re-secured control of the Senate in mid-term elections. That provided a political boost to Biden ahead of Monday’s face-to-face meeting in Bali, Indonesia, with China’s President Xi Jinping, which the American leader predicted would be defined by straight-talking between leaders of two rival powers. While the Democrats are still expected to lose control of the lower House of Representatives, which will make it more difficult for the Biden administration to get things done, the outcome was better than expected for the party. Speaking to reporters before attending Sunday’s East Asia Summit at a hotel in the Cambodian capital, Biden acknowledged that domestic politics has an impact on his international standing. The U.S. president’s trip to the region is all about signaling Washington’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific. “I know I’m coming in stronger, but I don’t need that,” Biden said. “I know Xi Jinping. I’ve spent more time with him than any other world leader. I know him well. He knows me. We have very little misunderstanding. We’ve just got to figure out where the red lines are and what are the most important things to each of us.” “There’s never any miscalculation about where each of us stand. And I think that’s critically important in our relationship,” Biden added. Although Biden had extensive in-person meetings with Xi during the Obama administration, and several phone calls with the Chinese leader since becoming president two years ago, Monday’s meeting will be their first face-to-face of his presidency. There are still many issues for him to raise, including China’s recent military exercises off Taiwan, its disputes with neighboring nations over the South China Sea, the crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, trade and new U.S. restrictions on semiconductor technology. The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit, which is the second installment of November’s Asian summit season. The first chapter ended on Sunday in Cambodia, which was hosting as the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – a position that will now be taken for the next year by Indonesia. The East Asia Summit is a gathering of ASEAN’s key dialogue partners in the Indo-Pacific. It comprises the 10 members of ASEAN, along with Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the U.S. That accounts for about 53% of the world’s population and last year, nearly 60% of global gross domestic product worth an estimated $57.2 trillion, according to the Australian government. The diplomatic impact of Sunday’s summit was diluted by the absence of Xi – China was represented by Premier Li Keqiang – and Russian President Vladimir Putin who sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Biden arrived late to the summit on Sunday morning, but later sat at the same table as Lavrov. There was no audio on the official feed of the meeting monitored by a journalist from the RFA-affiliated network, BenarNews, making it difficult to discern immediately if there were sharp exchanges over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to discuss the issue. “The Secretary discussed the United States’ unwavering commitment to assist Ukraine in mitigating the effects of Russia’s continued attacks on critical infrastructure, including with accelerated humanitarian aid and winterization efforts,” the State Department said. The two also talked about renewing the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which expires on Nov. 19 to support global food security and Ukraine’s battlefield continued effectiveness. Blinken told Kuleba the U.S. considers the timing and contents of any negotiations with Russia are entirely Ukraine’s decision. Also Sunday, Biden was holding separate meetings with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to discuss the nuclear threat from North Korea and other regional stability issues, the White House said. The U.S. has military bases in both countries. Biden’s presence at the summit gave him the opportunity to try to win over more countries into supporting the U.S. Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, an attempt to counter China’s economic and political influence in the region. Biden heads back to Washington after the G-20 while Vice President Kamala Harris takes his place at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, better known as APEC, in Thailand between Nov. 16-19.

Biden steps up engagement with ASEAN amid China rivalry and global conflict

Editor2 years ago012 mins

UPDATED AT 06:15 p.m. ET OF 11-12-2022 U.S. President Joe Biden offered rare praise for Cambodia’s authoritarian premier as he encouraged diplomatic support for ending the war in Ukraine and bringing peace to Myanmar at a summit with Southeast Asian leaders on Saturday. Although the control of U.S. Congress lies in the balance back in Washington, Biden signaled commitment to the region by attending an annual gathering of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. His appearance in Phnom Penh, a day after attending a climate change conference in Egypt, serves as a prelude to the first face-to-face meeting of his presidency with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which will take place in Bali, Indonesia, on Monday. The U.S. and China vie for influence in Southeast Asia. Although Cambodia has faced some stiff criticism from the U.S. over its suppression of democracy, Prime Minister Hun Sen welcomed the president saying the meeting showed the Biden administration’s commitment to “ASEAN centrality and a rule-based regional architecture to maintain peace and stability in the region.” “We support the engagement of the U.S in our ASEAN community building process as truly important, especially in the context of bolstering ASEAN’s recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, promoting regional resilience as well as addressing many pressing issues such as climate change, food and energy security,” he said, adding that ASEAN planned to extend relations with the U.S. to a comprehensive strategic partnership. That will put the U.S. on level-pegging with China, which already has that status. Cambodia is hosting the summit as it holds the rotating chairmanship of the 10-nation ASEAN bloc. Indonesia takes the chair after this week’s summits. Biden stressed the importance of the partnership, saying the U.S administration would build on the past year’s U.S. $250 million in new initiatives with ASEAN by requesting a further $850 million for the next 12 months. He said it would pay for more Southeast Asian projects such as an integrated electric vehicle ecosystem and clean energy infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions. “Together we will tackle the biggest issues of our time from climate to health security, defend against significant threats to rule-based order, and to threats to the rule of law, and to build an Indo-Pacific that’s free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure,” Biden said. The linchpin of the U.S. push in Southeast Asia is the Indo-Pacific Economic Partnership (IPEF) that is intended to intensify America’s economic engagement in the region. ASEAN is America’s fourth-largest trading partner. Whether the members of ASEAN will be impressed by what the U.S. has to offer is another matter. “I don’t think ASEAN states are much sold on IPEF. It contains parts that are anathema to them and yet isn’t really a trade deal, and does little to actually further regional economic integration. It’s a fairly weak package overall,” said Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. “China is already by far the region’s dominant economy and trade partner and the U.S. isn’t going to materially change that. Southeast Asian states are stuck with China as their dominant economic partner. “For some Southeast Asian states [there is] a desire to build closer strategic ties with the U.S, but the U.S. is not going to now replace China as the region’s dominant trade partner.” CAPTION: U.S. President Joe Biden meets with 2022 ASEAN Chair and Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen at the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Nov. 12, 2022. CREDIT: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque In a comment that would have raised some eyebrows among critics of the Cambodian government’s human rights record, Biden on Saturday thanked Hun Sen – for critical remarks about the war in Ukraine and for co-sponsoring U.N resolutions. Earlier this week, Hun Sen met with the Ukrainian foreign minister. He’s also expressed concern about recent attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian casualties. Russian President Vladimir Putin has skipped the ASEAN summit and sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in his place. However, Biden did call for transparency over Chinese military activities at Ream Naval base on Cambodia’s southern coast, and urged Hun Sen “to reopen civic and political space ahead of 2023 elections,” and release Theary Seng, an imprisoned U.S.-Cambodian lawyer and activist. The other conflict that Biden mentioned in his public comments to ASEAN leaders was Myanmar, whose military leader was not invited to the summit. Biden said he looked forward to the return of democracy there. Human rights groups have assailed the Southeast Asian bloc for its failure to put more pressure on Myanmar to end the civil war that followed a February 2021 military coup against an elected government. On Friday, ASEAN leaders took a marginally tougher stand, calling for measurable progress toward the goals of its Five Point Consensus that include restoring democracy and delivering humanitarian aid. On Saturday Antonio Guterres voiced his support for the plan, saying “the systematic violation of human rights are absolutely unacceptable and causing enormous suffering to the Myanmarese people.” Cambodia, which has jailed opposition politicians and environmentalists, was not spared criticism by the U.N. secretary general. “My appeal in a country like Cambodia is for the public space to be open and for human rights defenders and climate activists to be protected,” he said. Biden attends the East Asia Summit on Sunday, also hosted by Cambodia, where he plans once again to discuss ways to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine and limit the global impact of the war in terms of fuel and grain shortages that are fueling global inflation. The U.S. president is also holding talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol expected to focus on North Korea’s recent barrage of missiles fired into the seas off the Korean peninsula — including one that passed over Japan. North Korea is also reported to be planning a nuclear test. Biden then heads to the Indonesian island of Bali to attend the Group of 20 leaders’ summit. Ahead of the G20, on…

Collateral damage and secondary victims: the social impact of zero-COVID

Editor2 years ago018 mins

China’s zero-COVID policy has been marked by rolling, grueling urban lockdowns, constant demands for mass testing in affected areas and round-the-clock tracking of residents’ movements and test status via the Health Code smart-phone app. On Friday, the Chinese government released a package of 20 new policy measures aimed at “optimizing” the country’s pandemic response, including slightly relaxed quarantine requirements for new arrivals, but is unlikely to result in China opening up measurably in the next few months. Officials are now ordered to drop attempts to identify secondary contacts, while many people will be ordered to quarantine at home rather than in a camp if they return to their homes from a “high-risk” area. There will now only be high or low-risk areas, with medium-risk no longer a recognized category, the new regulations said. Close contacts of confirmed cases will still be required to stay in quarantine facilities for five days, rather than seven, followed by three days’ monitoring at home. The move marks a relaxation of the zero-COVID policy, espoused by Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping as the only way forward when it comes to containing the virus, has also led to a number of secondary disasters, prompting growing public dissatisfaction with the policy and widespread censorship of dissenting voices. But commentators told Radio Free Asia that zero-COVID is far from being just a stringent set of public health measures. It’s a political project close to Xi’s heart, and includes many layers of control over people’s movements and access to vital goods and services. “The pandemic measures were originally a professional matter involving public health management and medical measures to prevent the spread of disease,” veteran rights activist Yang Jianli said. “In today’s China, disease control and prevention is no longer professional: it’s political, and has given rise to [a series of] man-made disasters.” Reiterating commitment Xi recently reiterated his commitment to the zero-COVID policy, saying in his speech to the party congress last month that the government must “unswervingly stick to the zero-COVID policy.” The all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee reiterated this commitment on Nov. 10, a day before the quarantine requirements were relaxed. A worker in a protective suit guides people to scan health QR code at a COVID-19 test booth in Beijing, China, Nov. 11, 2022. Credit: Reuters The announcements came after months of reports of collateral victims of the policy, which first started to emerge during the April 2022 lockdown in Shanghai, when pandemic enforcers wearing full-body PPE were shown dragging children away from their parents, to send them to segregated quarantine camps outside of town. In one report from Reuters at the time, a 2 ½-year-old child was taken away from his parents at the Jinshan district public health clinic after testing positive for COVID-19. A viral video of the children’s segregated quarantine facility at the Jinshan Public Health Clinical Center showed dozens of children lying in iron cots, many of them disheveled and crying, amid a general lack of care and treatment. The hospital said the video was filmed at a time when the children’s ward was being moved to “improve the hospital environment” and free up more space for infants and young patients who tested positive. Eventually, public anger over the forced separation of children from parents grew, prompting the French Consulate in Shanghai to issue a letter to the city government on behalf of 24 EU member states, calling for a total ban on the separation of parents and children “under any circumstances.” Psychological toll Wang Yaqiu, China researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the incident was one example of many harms caused by the zero-COVID policy. “We don’t know how serious the psychological trauma has been for people,” Wang said. “Even if you don’t die due to lack of treatment, you can still be in a state of extreme anxiety, which has long-term psychological effects [on a person].” “It won’t be visible now,” he said, “but it will become so later.” Neighbors stand at the entrance of a compound in lockdown in the Changning District in Shanghai, Oct. 8, 2022. Credit: AFP In August 2022, the internet once more reacted angrily to a video showing a quarantine bus used to haul people off to isolation camps equipped with just a plastic bucket for passengers’ toilet needs. “Are we livestock? Is this what you are treating us like — pigs?” shouts a passenger angrily on a video from that time, as two pandemic enforcers refuse to allow them to get off the bus and order the driver to close the bus doors. A couple of weeks later, residents of apartment blocks in the southwestern city of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, found they were locked into their buildings despite running outside for their safety during a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Luding county on Sept. 5, with the tremors strongly felt in Chengdu. Residential compounds were locked, some fire escapes were blocked, while pandemic enforcers refused to open the doors to let people leave. Meanwhile, reports emerged in the eastern province of Jiangxi that a 12-year-old girl was raped in her own home after being left alone when both parents were sent to separate isolation camps. Police later confirmed they had arrested a man surnamed Liu who it later emerged was the village party secretary and a member of the Guixi Municipal People’s Congress. Worsened social problems Wang said the zero-COVID policy has tended to make existing social problems worse. “There are a lot of social problems in normal times to begin with,” she said. “One is that China lacks an independent judiciary, so your rights can be violated, and if you try to take the government to court, you will definitely lose.” “Secondly, there is no press freedom, so you can’t go to the media to tell them about some injustice that happened to you, and there is no internet freedom any more,” she said. “[Under zero-COVID], these social injustices and rights violations get exacerbated.” By October,…

ASEAN leaders call for measurable progress on Myanmar peace plan

Editor2 years ago08 mins

ASEAN leaders called Friday for measurable progress in their peace plan for Myanmar, amid growing criticism over the Southeast Asian bloc’s failure to stem the deepening conflict in one of its 10 member states. Meeting at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia, the group reaffirmed their commitment to the Five Point Consensus that was agreed to in April 2021 and aims to bring peace and restore democracy to Myanmar following the military coup against the elected government that has spawned a deepening civil conflict. A statement emerging from the summit in Phnom Penh called on ASEAN Foreign Ministers to establish a specific timeline for implementation of a plan that includes “concrete, practical and measurable indicators” of progress. ASEAN reserved the right to review Myanmar’s representation at its meetings. The call for tangible progress comes as human rights groups assail ASEAN’s failure to pressure the Myanmar junta, which has largely ignored the Five Point Consensus and resisted dialogue with representatives of the civilian administration it ousted. Instead, the military has dubbed many of its key political opponents as terrorists or outlaws and waged a scorched earth campaign in the Burmese heartland. Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo speaks to the media during ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. CREDIT: AP/Apunam Nath Earlier Friday, Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo expressed “deep disappointment” about the worsening situation in Myanmar. Indonesia is set to take over the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN from Cambodia, which is nearing the end of its 12-month stint. Myanmar’s coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was excluded from the summit, and Widodo told reporters he wanted to extend a ban on Myanmar junta representatives, who are barred from meetings of ASEAN leaders and foreign ministers, The Associated Press reported. Friday’s statement, however, stopped short of barring the junta from attending other ASEAN meetings. “Indonesia is deeply disappointed the situation in Myanmar is worsening,” Widodo said. “We must not allow the situation in Myanmar to define ASEAN.” Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. also called on Myanmar to abide by and implement the Five Point Consensus. Analysts say there are clear fault lines among ASEAN’s 10 members on how to deal with the Myanmar crisis – with Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore reportedly taking a tougher line than nations such as Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Nevertheless, as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen kicked off Friday’s proceedings, he asserted: “Our Motto ‘ASEAN: One Vision, One Identity, One Community’ still holds true to its values today.” He was speaking at the opening ceremony of what were actually two summits in one day. ASEAN is required to hold two leaders’ meetings a year but countries that don’t have the cash to pay for separate meetings are allowed to hold them back-to-back. Also on the agenda were security issues, regional growth and geopolitics. Marcos seemed to urge caution over global powers gaining further influence in the region. Leaders of strategic rivals the U.S. and China – President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Li Keqiang – are joining summit meetings in Phnom Penh this week. “It is imperative that we reassert ASEAN Centrality. This in the face of geopolitical dynamics and tensions in the region and the proliferation of Indo-Pacific engagements, including the requests of our dialogue partners for closer partnerships,” he said. Marcos’ comments came a day after top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, said Saturday’s ASEAN-U.S. Summit would try to promote the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, whose signatories include the Philippines. That framework is widely seen as Washington’s effort to counter China’s investment in infrastructure and industry in Southeast Asia and beyond. “ASEAN is clearly at the center of the region’s architecture, and the U.S.’s strategic partnership with ASEAN is at the heart of our Indo-Pacific strategy,” Kritenbrink said. The 10 ASEAN members will still need international trade and investment partners as the world recovers from the impact of COVID-19. Hun Sen was cautious about expectations of a strong post-pandemic recovery. “While we are now enjoying the fruits of our efforts and moving towards sustainable growth we should always be vigilant as the current socio-economic situation in ASEAN as well as in the whole world remains fragile and divided,” he said. But he cited forecasts that economic growth in ASEAN would reach 5.3% this year and 4.2% in 2023, which he called “impressive compared to the rest of the world.” ASEAN leaders also held talks Friday with China, South Korea and the United Nations. On Saturday they meet with India, Australia, Japan, Canada and the U.S. Next week, there will be further summits of leaders of the G-20 in Indonesia, and APEC in Thailand. Indonesia is next to take the ASEAN chair and it may be hosting an 11th member. Leaders issued a statement Friday saying they agreed in principle to East Timor joining the bloc.

Putin confirms he won’t travel to Bali for G20 summit

Editor2 years ago05 mins

Russian President Vladimir Putin officially confirmed he won’t be coming to Bali to attend the G20 summit next week, a senior official of host country Indonesia said Thursday, adding the decision was for “the best for all of us.” Minister Luhut Pandjaitan was echoing analysts’ comments that Putin’s presence could cause tensions with Western leaders who oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will go to Bali in Putin’s place, said Luhut, the coordinating minister of maritime and investment affairs “We have been officially notified that the Russian president will not come,” Luhut told reporters, according to BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. “We have to respect it. Whatever happened to Russia’s decision, it is for our common good and the best for all of us.” Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” said this week that 17 leaders had confirmed their participation at the summit, including the American and Chinese presidents. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy will likely participate in the Bali summit via a video link, a local television channel quoted the presidential spokesman as saying on Tuesday. Ukraine is not a G20 member and its president will be participating as an observer. Last week, Zelenskyy said he would not attend the Bali summit if Putin were present. In March, U.S. President Joe Biden urged Jokowi to invite Ukraine as a guest if Russia was not expelled from the Group of Twenty for invading its smaller neighbor in late February. As this year’s holder of the rotating G20 presidency, Jokowi has sought unity within the grouping of industrialized and emerging economies ahead of the summit. Western countries have condemned Russia for invading Ukraine while other G20 members including China, Indonesia and India have refused to follow suit and maintain ties with Moscow. Russian setback in Ukraine Putin’s decision not to attend the summit in person came a day after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, the city on the Dnipro River that is the front line of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces. A potential stalemate in fighting over the winter could give both countries an opportunity to negotiate peace, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday, the Associated Press news agency reported. Indonesian Minister Luhut did not give a reason for Putin’s absence from the summit, merely saying “maybe it’s because President Putin is busy at home, and we also have to respect that,” AP reported. Political analysts, however, attribute other motives for the Russian president’s decision to stay home. “Putin’s absence from the G20 meeting in Bali is a net positive – every party stands to benefit,” Greg Barton, a professor at Deakin University in Australia, told BenarNews. “Putin is fearful of a Kremlin coup – leaving Moscow at the moment is just too risky,” he said, adding that many members of the Russian elite wanted to see him go. Radityo Dharmaputra, a political analyst at Airlangga University, echoed Barton’s observation. “There are many considerations. There may be elements seeking to overthrow him because he hasn’t won the war,” he told BenarNews. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

Videos show brutal interrogation in Myanmar, allegedly at hands of junta soldier

Editor2 years ago09 mins

Sunlight streams into a room where two men sit on a green, floral-patterned mat – one bound and blindfolded, the other holding a gun. The armed man is wearing a jacket with a Myanmar military badge on its sleeve. He pokes the barrel of his assault rifle at his prisoner’s head before repositioning himself, seemingly to make sure a cell phone set up to record the scene captures both his profile and the torture to come. The phone was found on Nov. 6 in Moe Bye township in Kayah state by members of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF), an armed ethnic group fighting the military junta for control of the country, and shared with an RFA Burmese reporter. In the video retrieved from the phone, the man in the military jacket sets aside his rifle and picks up a stiff rod that he uses to repeatedly strike the victim, asking in Burmese if the man is a member of the People’s Defense Force, a group of militias fighting the military for control of the country. “Are you part of the PDF?” the man asks. “Did PDF and KNDF come to your village?” The victim seems to struggle to understand, an indication that he may speak Karenni, Kayan or another local dialect. He shifts and stiffens as he senses another strike is coming, his gasps growing more plaintive as the abuse continues. RFA hasn’t identified either the perpetrator or the victim and is unable to independently verify the authenticity of the video. The interrogator pokes an assault rifle at his captive’s head. Credit: RFA screenshot from video Maui, a KNDF secretary, said in an interview that the phone was discovered after a firefight with military forces, but that it was apparently shot in September. The KNDF said the man in the video was a resident of Kayah and not a member of its forces. Calls seeking comment from junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered on Wednesday. Myanmar’s junta has waged a brutal counterinsurgency campaign since it ousted a democratically elected government in early 2021. It now faces resistance on a number of fronts, from ethnic areas along the country’s borders and pro-democracy PDFs that are tied to the shadow National Unity Government in its interior. In the 20 months since the coup, the military has struggled to maintain control against the rebel forces arrayed against it. Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), said authorities in Myanmar have killed at least 2,311 civilians and arrested nearly 15,600 others since the coup — mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests. The Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar) said in a report last spring that at least 5,646 civilians in the country had been killed between the Feb. 1, 2021, coup and early May. A Myanmar military patch is seen on the arm interrogator’s jacket. Credit: RFA screenshot from video Maui said an insignia on the gun indicates that the torturer in the video is a soldier from the Light Infantry Battalion-1, under Myanmar’s 66th Infantry Division. Maui told RFA have been tortured by junta soldiers since the 66th launched an offensive against KNDF forces several weeks ago. “The junta troops always arrest and interrogate some villagers who do not run away and remain in their own homes when they arrive,” he said. “They torture and kill if they are not pleased. This is what they always do.” The brutal interrogation was shared with RFA in seven videos that run for a total of about 17 minutes, all in the single, sunlit room. The man in the military jacket smokes in one sequence and pauses to eat something in another. He alternately seems bored, frustrated and indifferent as he uses the rod to strike and choke his cowering victim. At one point, he appears to stab the other man with a small knife. A picture of the phone, a Samsung Galaxy A12, was shared with RFA, but not the phone itself. KNDF also shared photographs of a decapitated man it says it retrieved from the same phone. RFA is not publishing those pictures. The captive struggles as the interrogator chokes him with a rod. Credit: RFA screenshot from video This summer, RFA obtained evidence of atrocities from a soldier’s abandoned cell phone in the Sagaing region, which has been the setting of a number of conflicts between People’s Defense Forces militias and Myanmar soldiers. The phone contained photographs of two soldiers standing behind five blindfolded and bleeding victims, and a video of the men bragging about the number of people they had killed. The phone was discovered by a villager in the Ayadaw township where the military had been conducting raids. In response, military leaders said they would investigate, but there is no evidence they have done so. The videos share a shamelessness in the brutality they depict. Maui said military forces are deliberately torturing civilians. “If the people are scared, they will stop supporting the resistance groups. Our revolution is based on the support of our people,” he said. “Our resistance groups will never back off [because of the] atrocities. I believe that the people will support us even more because of their inhumane acts.” The Kayah video ends with the tortured man lying on his back as his torturer, now with a machete in his hand, plays an audio of a Buddhist monk. The videos do not show what happened to the captive. “I’ve filmed you,” the armed man says, noting his victim is about the same age as his father. “I feel sorry for you only after I’ve tortured you.”

Category: South Asia